


One Last Call

by Kaibbage (Lalaen)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Ouija, Paranormal, Post-Canon, Shoebox Telephone Ritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4722656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalaen/pseuds/Kaibbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Communicating with the dead has always been one of Ryou's hobbies. Maybe that's why it's been so hard to accept that the spirit is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Call

**Author's Note:**

> For tumblr user officialthiefking's birthday. And also Ryou's birthday, which is one day before c:

Staring dead-eyed into the mirror, Ryou willed those eyes - sharper than his own - to stare back. He wanted this more than anything. 

_Please,_ he said to nothing in particular. _Can I see him again. Even one more time..._

His desire was so overwhelmingly intense that for one dizzy moment, he thought he saw his face change. A single blink shattered the illusion; it was just him standing there. Just Ryou. No sly and wicked smile, no sharp eyes, no messy hair. He stared at his mild-mannered reflection and hated it for who it wasn't. 

His planchette wouldn't move when he put it on the board. Once, out of sheer desperation, he'd invited Yugi. The raw hope in his friend's eyes when he'd said what he was trying to do had made him regret it immediately. Yugi may act fine around his friends and knowing him, even be able to stay genuinely cheerful a lot of the time. That look, though. It'd cut right through to Ryou's heart. He knew that feeling. And with how close Yugi had been to the Pharaoh, the level of intimacy in their relationship, Ryou could hardly imagine how this must be effecting him.

Yugi's hands were not steady on the planchette like Ryou's were. He'd never really done this kind of thing, and Ryou knew that paranormal things really scared him. However, he could see Yugi physically steeling himself. He could almost see the thought, _do it for Atem, you can see Atem again,_ and it hurt to know he'd given Yugi so much hope for something he nearly knew wouldn't work. 

Maybe, just maybe... The Pharaoh hadn't been obliterated. He'd just left, and he cared for Yugi so much. If he could come back to speak to him, surely he would. 

"Do I say something?" Yugi's voice was a harsh whisper, his pupils were blown huge. Ryou gave him a brief nod, hating himself for imparting this futile hope. Let him move on. Let someone move on from this desperate loneliness. 

"Atem..." His voice started out level, but as soon as he opened his mouth again it broke, and the moment it did his composure was gone. "Yami, please... I can't do anything without you." His shoulders shook as he tried to rein in the force of his emotion. He was sobbing rough and raw, tears starting to spill down his face. The wall Ryou had seen at school and with their friends crumbled in an instant. He felt like he should do something, say something; but they needed both their fingers on the planchette if this was going to work.

He let himself believe it would. He guided Yugi in little circles on the board, trying to engage a spirit. One of their spirits. Yugi had given himself hiccups, and his sniffling sobs were the only sound. They both barely dared to breathe. 

_Please Pharaoh,_ Ryou thought to himself, no longer able to look at his friend at all. _If you can... For Yugi. Please, I've hurt him so bad..._

Nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen. Ryou felt tears prick his own eyes, tears he hadn't felt in so long. He'd honestly thought he cried them all. Now, seeing Yugi so utterly broken, he found a few more. 

He awkwardly offered a hug to his friend as he packed the board away. Yugi clung to him like a man drowning, his whole body wracked with his sobbing. Ryou knew he did not give good hugs, but he tried his best. His bony arms wrapped around slender shoulders, his hands couldn't find a good place to hold. They never could. He'd seen Joey hold Yugi, how Joey hugged with his whole body and how the smaller boy seemed to melt right into him. He wished he could hug like that, make his friend feel safe like that. Instead, his body arched away, his hands hovered awkwardly as Yugi bawled on his shoulder.

"You should call Joey," he found himself saying from behind the curtain of his hair. He knew the two of them had been having a lot of sleepovers. It was good. He clearly needed that emotional support. 

Ryou wished that he could feel close enough, comfortable enough with someone to lean on them. Yugi had given him an open invitation to come over, all of them had been so receptive and friendly and told him they'd love to hang out and would be there to talk any time if he needed it. Even Seto had given him his personal number, acting like it was no big deal. 

Ryou didn't know how to talk to anyone right now. He didn't think he could. Not even Yugi, who really did understand what he was going through; not even Yugi who was grieving too. Ryou didn't know how to interact with another soul when he felt this way. He was empty inside. 

Literally. 

Joey came to pick up Yugi, giving Ryou an apologetic look as he put his jacket around the small boy's shoulders. "He'd like it if ya came over some time, yanno," he said quietly when they left. Ryou nodded, but he knew he couldn't. 

Maybe he just needed to be alone. 

He wanted to be the kind of alone he used to be. Alone with him. 

There was one thing Ryou had heard of that he hadn't yet tried. He was well-versed in ways of contacting the dead, and he'd tried to reach his spirit with all of them. This one remaining thing he'd never tried with any spirit. Maybe it would work. He wanted it enough. 

Apparently desire and lack of doubt was the main component to this ritual. Ryou had those in spades. If anyone could make this work, it was him. 

Absolute certainty. 

It was the way he felt when the spirit had sat beside him, face-to-face, and offered that wicked grin. When the spirit who took whatever he wanted and gave nothing back had stopped and waited permission to touch him, to love him. 

He said he was a demon, but Ryou could see the good in him. If he was a demon he was also a man. 

A man who'd once had a good heart. 

One who had not so much as assumed Ryou had wanted his touch. One who had waited with pleading, almost vulnerable eyes so unlike him. One who'd protected the body of the boy he claimed not to care about with his own life. 

Ryou remembered what the spirit had felt like; the pure and unbridled screaming rage that had at times been his soul and had certainly been his sustenance during three thousand years in the ring, alone. What a long time to be alone that must have been, and so much deeper an ache than the simple friendless loneliness he'd felt himself. Ryou felt he could almost understand that insane anger. He could imagine exactly how it'd grown during all that time. He couldn't imagine withstanding it without being burned alive. 

_He hated the Pharaoh,_ Ryou thought as he set out his pencil and single sheet of lined paper, _but I think maybe he loved me._

There was so much he wanted to say, and only a single sheet to do it. Besides that, there was no take-backs, no erasing or crossing out or starting over. 

Absolute certainty was what he'd felt when he told the spirit to love him, to fuck him; and absolute certainty was what he felt now. His messy handwriting spilled across the page with barely a thought. Only one page. He needed the spirit to know he was forgiven. Ryou forgave him for everything he'd been put through; for all the times the spirit took control without asking, for trying to hurt his friends, for lying to him. Ryou forgave it all, and more. He forgave all the wrongdoing in the spirit's life in Egypt, and all the evil things he'd wanted. Maybe Ryou shouldn't forgive these things, but he didn't care. He forgave the spirit for hurting him, for all the trouble he'd caused in his life. He wanted the spirit to find peace. 

Ryou wanted the spirit to know that he cared about him, too. 

Ryou looked down at the paper, which he was not too surprised to see he'd filled without really thinking about what words he was going to write. He knew he was not really supposed to read it over yet, so with the mechanical numbness with which he'd done so many things in the past few months, he performed the next steps of the ritual. He'd read this thing over so many times in preparation that he did not have to think about it. It was a good thing, as he did not know that he could have. His head was buzzing. Leaving the millennium ring resting on his chest, he tied one end of a piece of string around it. The other end he threaded through a paper cup he'd left on his desk for this purpose, tying a knot so it wouldn't slip back through. After a moment's blank staring at the cup, he held it slowly up to his mouth. His pale lips parted, and the breath he took through them was a harsh echo inside the cup. 

He thought of his spirit, and his hand trembled when he picked up the paper on which he'd written. He wondered if this was how Yugi felt when he'd put his hand on that planchette. He remembered how excited he'd been when he found out that most of his earlier oujia board experiences were owed to his spirit. The spirit would spell out 'ZORC' when asked his name, or on several occasions, 'YOU'. 

There would usually be a few tricks - something would fall or levitate, the planchette would be tossed at him in what he'd now come to recognize as playfulness. He'd never been afraid of these things. In fact, he'd been quite excited to see real life paranormal events happening right in front of him. He also realized by now that the spirit must have been quite possessive over him, and that was no doubt why he'd never awoken anything bad with his irresponsible child foolings with contacting the dead. By all rights, he should be much more haunted by now. 

"Dear spirit," the words tumbled from his mouth like a sigh. The paper seemed so fragile, almost transparent, like a ghost itself in his hand. He was supposed to read it with all of the mistakes intact, and like he was reading it directly to the one he was trying to contact. That part would not be hard. He felt that familiar weight of the ring against his breastbone.

"I'm afraid you died thinking no one cared about you," his voice was thin and wavery under the weight of emotion that he hadn't even thought he could feel any more. "That is not true. I want you to find peace. It's not about giving up on your revenge, I just want you to feel happiness." His mouth already felt dry. He licked his lips and took a breath that felt like sandpaper in his throat. "Sometimes you made me feel happy, and like I was worth something to someone. I did end up with friends because of you, and even though you tried to hurt them they stayed," he pushed on through what had ended up as quite a long sentence, not pausing for breath. "... And I think that without you I wouldn't have them and I want you to share some of that happiness. I want your soul to rest." Ryou's voice cracked and he had to stop to breathe, to stay the tears that were apparently still just beneath the surface. "I know you never got to be happy and I want that for you."

Ryou stared at the wall, jaw clenched in determination with that cup in front of his mouth. Any who'd said he was weak-willed would hardly believe him to see him now. "I forgive everything you did to me. I don't want you to go thinking I have any ill will for you. I don't. Even though you hurt me, I want you to know it's okay. I forgive you." A shudder wracked his body, tears pressed so hard behind his eyes that he felt almost sick. "It's.. It's okay that you hurt people I cared about and that you used me and lied to me. You did bad things, I know that. I can't hate you for them." It got harder as he neared the end of the page, getting the words out of his mouth was like wringing the last of the water from a wet cloth. He felt like he'd himself been wrung; all twisted up inside. 

"I know there's good in you somewhere even if you try... Tried to hide it. I want you to know that not everything you did was bad and hurtful. I want to thank you for the," he stopped to force himself to swallow past the lump in his throat. "The strength and the confidence you've given me. There's one person that misses you and cared, cares about you. One person thinks of you well and wishes you would come back. I..." He finally lost his composure, and a few hot, fat tears slipped down his cheeks before he could stop them. "I know you can't."

"If you can have peace wherever you are, if you can be happy at all or be with your family, I want that for you more." Even Ryou's voice sounded wrung out now. The tears had fallen on the paper and were making the ink run, but there were a few more scant words at the bottom. His chin brushed the rim of the paper cup as he read them, his hand was shaking so badly. His voice was a whisper. 

"Please rest. Everything is okay now." Though the whole letter had been riddled with punctuation errors due to Ryou's fast and emotional writing, the last sentence didn't even have a period to end it. 

"I loved you too." He let the paper fall from his hand. The lump in his throat had become so bad that he almost felt as though he was being choked. "Your... Landlord." 

The room seemed eerily still as he took off the millennium ring. He missed the weight as soon as it was gone, but fumbled it into the shoebox and closed the lid tight, setting the cup upright on its rim on top. Then he crawled the few feet to his closet, carefully placing the box inside. 

Being separated from the ring hurt, but he forced himself to ignore it as he pulled the door closed. He had to wait for the phone to ring. He had to wait and see if his spirit could reply to him. He stumbled to the bed. 

He did not remember falling asleep.

It was just like old times, really. He could almost tell himself that his spirit had put him to bed again, had taken care of him. He knew better, and he hated that he did. His gaze immediately went to the closet door, which remained closed. The ritual said the one he wanted to contact would come to him in a dream within three or four days. No results on the first night did not mean he wouldn't get any. He had three more nights. He told himself there was still time. He just had to forget about it until it was time to sleep again. 

That was going to be impossible. 

Ryou was not sure he'd ever experienced wanting to sleep before. Normally he fought it off as long as he could, preferring to use his oujia board during the witching hour or work on his Monster World campaigns. He might only get a few hours, and people were always commenting on the dark shadows under his eyes. Today he'd started wondering if he could go to bed yet at around nine pm. He tried to lose himself in his normal activities; paint some figures, read some ghost stories, work out some NPC stats. Nothing could hold his focus. 

Out of desperation, knowing he was going to end up struggling to sleep even if he stayed up until all hours, he curled up under his blankets and wiggled out of his pants. He focused hard on what the spirit had done to him in the past. He loved being with others, but rarely wanted to do things himself. The spirit was usually happy to take care of that. His wicked hands would rake the inside of Ryou's thighs, so wonderfully rough. He knew no one else would probably ever understand how much he liked pain. The spirit understood, and gave him what he wanted in spades. His teeth left marks on Ryou's pale skin, and he'd have finger shaped bruises on his wrists. 

Ryou remembered how those fingers had felt curling inside of him, and his hand tightened on his cock. He wished he could fuck himself properly, that'd be a sure way to exhaust him. Though this would tire him out, it made his loneliness, his need for the spirit to rise to a sweet ache. He trembled uncontrollably as he came, his harsh gasp sounding more like a sob. 

He curled into an insecure ball, feeling sick and raw. At least his body would be tired enough to let him sleep. Maybe tonight would be the night when he could see the spirit again. 

He felt the edge of the bed sink, but he was too sleepy to move. His body was too heavy. His hair moved like a hand ran through it, and that was enough to get him to jolt up. 

The spirit of the ring sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over him. His lips formed what looked like 'host', but Ryou couldn't hear his voice. He stared at the spirit, not knowing why he wouldn't move. Why he wouldn't react. 

The spirit's sharp eyes flicked towards the closet door, and Ryou turned his head to follow that gaze. As he did, he

Opened his eyes. He was laying in bed, facing the closet. It was a dream, but he quickly realized that wasn't all. It was the dream. That was his phone ringing. 

The spirit really had come. 

Still a little numb from sleep, he scrambled out of bed, legs tangling in the sheets. The closet door was closed, and that was good. If it was ajar that could be trouble, or if the cup had moved from where he'd placed it. But would he really abort now? Could he? He pulled the door open, hardly realizing how much his heart was pounding. The cup would be sitting upright on the closed shoebox, and he'd just pick it up, being careful not to open the box, and put it to his ear. Then he'd hear the spirit's voice. He dropped into a cross-legged position, reaching to close the door behind him and bring the absolute darkness he needed. 

The cup caught his attention, and he paused a moment. 

The cup was not sitting in the specified position he knew he'd placed it in - set upside-down on the rim on top of the box. In fact, it wasn't even on the box. The paper cup lay beside it, tipped over; as though it'd been carelessly tossed down. 

Very slowly, Ryou pulled the closet door closed. The emergency scissors to cut the string were right next to the cup. He reached over, steely determination in his eyes. His hand closed around the cup, the string brushing against his wrist as he raised it. 

He pressed it to his ear.

"Hello?"


End file.
